Winter Storm Begins Wednesday

A major winter storm in the Southern Plains will push towards the Great Lakes (just like last week) and greet New England with a wintry slop on Wednesday.  Before then we will see a mix of sun and clouds on Tuesday with highs in the low 40's in Southern New England and mid to upper 30's in Central and Northern New England.  Now onto the storm

Current Observations

Quite a few watches and warnings across the United States

NWS Hazards Map

There are winter storm watches and warnings, Blizzard warnings, Tornado Watches, Ice Storm Warnings among others.  The primary systems driving these are shown on the surface chart

HPC surface chart 4 PM

A surface low pressure in Oklahoma is producing the major snow from the Texas Panhandle through NW Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.  As the storm occludes to the Northeast a new low pressure center will gradually develop and grab Gulf Moisture and head along the Mid Atlantic coast and eventually New England. 

By tomorrow evening the storm will be taking shape

HPC Tuesday 7 PM forecast

A good slug of snow will work in overnight for areas west of 95 and north of the Pike.  Southern Worcester County is tricky- the Valley will likely be too warm to support accumulations past 9 AM on Wednesday.  The Western part of the county should do well.  The higher elevations are going to do very well.  My snowfall accumulations for Wednesday look like this

Wednesday-Thursday snow forecast

This is going to be a heavy thump Wednesday morning before switching to rain.  On the backside of the storm there will be a few flakes.  The morning commute looks to be snowy if one is heading to Worcester.  If you are heading to Boston or Providence things will improve as you get closer.  Rain will be heavy at times on Wednesday.  Here is the expected precipitation

HPC 3 day rainfall totals

This will make drains clog with runoff from the rain and leftover snow from the morning.  Everything will be a pure winter slop.  Even the snow should be heavy as temperatures will be marginal for snowfall on Wednesday.  I will update in the morning.